Using the saxophone as a lens to examine contemporary music, Gavin Goodwin has enjoyed an international performing career across Canada, the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom. With contemporary music as a focus, he aims to explore the possibilities of the saxophone as a vehicle for musical innovation and experimentation. He has performed works by some of the strongest voices in composition today, including Georges Aperghis, Alex Mincek, Matthew Burtner, Marilyn Shrude, Robert Morris, Colin Labadie, Thierry Alla, Christian Lauba, Gabriel Erkoreka, Fabien Lévy, Michael Oesterle, and Robert Lemay. His portfolio of commissions and premieres is ever expanding as he seeks out up-and-coming composers, collaborations, and interdisciplinary performance opportunities. 

Gavin is an alumnus of several festivals and workshops, including the New Music on the Point Contemporary Music Festival (Vermont), the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, the Toronto Creative Music Lab, Cortona New Music Sessions, the SPLICE Institute, and completed a program as a musician-in-residence at the Banff Centre. He has played in masterclasses for some of the finest masters of the instrument including Marie-Bernadette Charrier, Otis Murphy, Lars Mlekusch, Philippe Geiss, Nicolas Prost, Kenneth Radnofsky, and the Quasar Quatuor de Saxophones. He has also garnered awards, scholarships, and grants from various institutions and multiple levels of government, including the prestigious Arts Graduate Scholarship from the provincial Government of Alberta.  

Notable performances include New Music Edmonton, the Bowling Green New Music Festival, the United States Navy Band Saxophone Symposium, conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance, the International Saxophone Symposium and Competition, the Nextfest Emerging Arts Festival, the Edmonton International Jazz Festival, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, the Threshold Electroacoustic Conference, the National Student Electronic Music Event, the New Music on the Point Contemporary Music Festival, the Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, the Electroacoustic Barndance, and the World Saxophone Congress. Gavin can be heard in recording on Interactions, a 2016 CD release of electro-acoustic works from SEAMUS (The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States).  
 

Educated in both Canada and the United States, Gavin holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Alberta (Edmonton, AB) and a Master of Music degree from Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH). His teachers include Marie-Chantal Leclair, Allison Balcetis, William H. Street, and John Sampen. Gavin is currently pursuing a Master of Information Studies degree at McGill University, serves as a librarian intern at the Canadian Music Centre in Quebec, and is a co-organizer of the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab.

Find Gavin Goodwin's CV here.